Casual post before I get back to things
Jan. 19th, 2019 04:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gffaI've been kind of spinning for the last week or so, in a mostly good way, because there's so many things I want to do! I think between SW fic slowing down all across the board lately and my creeping up on overexposure to all things Star Wars (which is great when everything is super good and Relevant To My Interests, less so when it's quality stuff but doesn't quite scratch the itch I have), I've needed to consume other things for awhile, just give myself some decompression room.
I still have a little ways to go before going back to SW full bore, but I'm getting there! In the meantime, let me yell about other stuff! :D
ღ - The big thing that's consumed me is FarmVille which, yes, I know is the most uncool game ever, but I love it. I love decorating and I love collecting things and I've gotten in with some other players who are really helpful and I have been just SAILING THROUGH ALL OF IT, SO MANY CUTE DECORATIONS, SO MANY CUTE ANIMALS, NEW FARM NEW FARM NEW FARM, I'M HALFWAY TO FINISHING THE MAIN QUEST AND IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK!!! (For reference, these days FV puts out a new farm probably every 2-3 months, but the main quest usually lasts about 5 weeks, then you have a bit of a breather before it all starts again.)
What I've been doing is, because the new farm (a Moroccan themed farm) has such limited space, I decided to decorate on an older farm, the Desert Oasis one, since they're similar enough in theme that stuff looks good together and am I going to take screencaps and share my in progress work on this farm? WHY YES I AM.
This is an attempt to be both decorative and semi-functional. I may later add in some crop space if I have extra room, but it's not a priority, this is meant to be a farm to hold my Moroccan trees and animals, for when I need them for quests. Once they're ready to be harvested, it's a lot easier to have them all in one place, looking pretty, as well as having a section just for orchards allows me to harvest one, then take the trees from that one to put into the next orchard, so if I need 30 trees to harvest, but only have 15, I only need to do it twice instead of waiting another full day for it to come due. (Super orchards stay ready to harvest, but regular orchards, even fully upgraded do not, IIRC.) Same theory for the horse barn there and the cows over in the other section. Plus, it's just a really cute way to display things!
My only complaint is that the tiles don't automatically continue, I have to open up the market every time I want to add a new one, but I am determined!
Other than that, it's still a bit of a mess, but it takes time to arrange everything perfectly. So the bottom half is taking shape, but the buildings and stuff (I'M GONNA MAKE A CUTE MARKET CENTER IN THE MIDDLE OF MY DESERT OASIS VILLAGE HERE) are still scattered wherever I dropped them. Animal pens are taking shape, all my horses are displayed cutely, I still need more cows to fill it in, but that will come in time.
I need more decorations to fill in some of the walkways, some street lanterns or simple trees or benches or something, but those will come in time, too. I'm really happy with the way this is coming along! Even if it does suck up hours of my day every day now. orz
Potential for future ideas: Instead of having fenced off sections, maybe I'll keep the stone pathways to use as dividers and instead make it like an oasis village in the middle of the desert, all grouped together. This way is helpful for structuring it, but it might feel more village-like without the fences, hmm.
ღ - I watched The Terror over a couple of nights and it was quite the experience! For at least half of the series, I couldn't say I really precisely cared about any of the characters, yet there was this magnetic pull to the story, it was impossible to stop watching one after the next! But, by the end, yeah, okay, I had definitely developed feelings for pretty much everyone and I can see why ffa is so obsessed with it, it's really well-done and incredibly engaging and there are some stellar performances.
I read a bit from the creators afterwards and one of the things I really liked about it was that they said they deliberately decided ahead of time that there weren't going to be any jump scares, which then freed them up to go in all these other directions to establish the tension and frightening elements of the show. I can't say it was a particularly scary show, despite that I watched in the middle of the night, the thing that haunted me more than anything else was an entirely human moment of violence. But that doesn't mean it was less engaging for that, instead I think it forced them to tell an interesting story and they did a really fantastic job at creating this terrible situation that just keeps going downhill, but without feeling like a slog. You know how this all has to end, there's always another problem, and yet the journey to that end is the focus, it's not trying to fool you, it's not trying to take a cheap shot at scaring you, but instead it's telling the story of what these people went through and that so, so much of it was about themselves, not actually about the monster chasing them.
It helps, too, that there's no rape/rape threats (other violence and some gore, but this isn't The Walking Dead, either) and it was just so refreshingly dark without being edgelord grimdark. That and combined with a cast of characters that get stripped down and stripped down until you see who they really are, as portrayed by excellent actors? It was SUCH an experience.
I may be downloading some fic onto my reader as we speak. (I didn't think I'd have any ships by the end, but, boy, did I. I like the friendships, but also there were 2-3 pairings that I feel the siren song of needing more for.)
ღ - Aw, shit. I wasn't going to watch s2 of The Punisher because that trailer was the most lackluster thing just about ever (Netflix MCU really feels phoned in the last year or so, which kind of makes it easier that they're probably going to cancel all of it any day now) but then I saw a mention of [SPOILERS] on ffa and, shit, now I gotta watch it!
ღ - GRACE AND FRANKIE SEASON 5. I AM EXCITED. :D
ღ - I got sucked into reading all about Sarah Rees Brennan wank (here and here and here) and it's just, jeez, the Cassie Claire wank is the wank that never ends. It's pretty boggling to read through all of that, but I couldn't stop watching the trainwreck. (I have no opinions on SRB, she wasn't my area of fandom, I haven't read her books, the only opinion I have is, "Never forgive, never forget, CC." at least until she showed a sincere apology and owned up to it, but I don't think that's ever happening.)
I still have a little ways to go before going back to SW full bore, but I'm getting there! In the meantime, let me yell about other stuff! :D
ღ - The big thing that's consumed me is FarmVille which, yes, I know is the most uncool game ever, but I love it. I love decorating and I love collecting things and I've gotten in with some other players who are really helpful and I have been just SAILING THROUGH ALL OF IT, SO MANY CUTE DECORATIONS, SO MANY CUTE ANIMALS, NEW FARM NEW FARM NEW FARM, I'M HALFWAY TO FINISHING THE MAIN QUEST AND IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK!!! (For reference, these days FV puts out a new farm probably every 2-3 months, but the main quest usually lasts about 5 weeks, then you have a bit of a breather before it all starts again.)
What I've been doing is, because the new farm (a Moroccan themed farm) has such limited space, I decided to decorate on an older farm, the Desert Oasis one, since they're similar enough in theme that stuff looks good together and am I going to take screencaps and share my in progress work on this farm? WHY YES I AM.
This is an attempt to be both decorative and semi-functional. I may later add in some crop space if I have extra room, but it's not a priority, this is meant to be a farm to hold my Moroccan trees and animals, for when I need them for quests. Once they're ready to be harvested, it's a lot easier to have them all in one place, looking pretty, as well as having a section just for orchards allows me to harvest one, then take the trees from that one to put into the next orchard, so if I need 30 trees to harvest, but only have 15, I only need to do it twice instead of waiting another full day for it to come due. (Super orchards stay ready to harvest, but regular orchards, even fully upgraded do not, IIRC.) Same theory for the horse barn there and the cows over in the other section. Plus, it's just a really cute way to display things!
My only complaint is that the tiles don't automatically continue, I have to open up the market every time I want to add a new one, but I am determined!
Other than that, it's still a bit of a mess, but it takes time to arrange everything perfectly. So the bottom half is taking shape, but the buildings and stuff (I'M GONNA MAKE A CUTE MARKET CENTER IN THE MIDDLE OF MY DESERT OASIS VILLAGE HERE) are still scattered wherever I dropped them. Animal pens are taking shape, all my horses are displayed cutely, I still need more cows to fill it in, but that will come in time.
I need more decorations to fill in some of the walkways, some street lanterns or simple trees or benches or something, but those will come in time, too. I'm really happy with the way this is coming along! Even if it does suck up hours of my day every day now. orz
Potential for future ideas: Instead of having fenced off sections, maybe I'll keep the stone pathways to use as dividers and instead make it like an oasis village in the middle of the desert, all grouped together. This way is helpful for structuring it, but it might feel more village-like without the fences, hmm.
ღ - I watched The Terror over a couple of nights and it was quite the experience! For at least half of the series, I couldn't say I really precisely cared about any of the characters, yet there was this magnetic pull to the story, it was impossible to stop watching one after the next! But, by the end, yeah, okay, I had definitely developed feelings for pretty much everyone and I can see why ffa is so obsessed with it, it's really well-done and incredibly engaging and there are some stellar performances.
I read a bit from the creators afterwards and one of the things I really liked about it was that they said they deliberately decided ahead of time that there weren't going to be any jump scares, which then freed them up to go in all these other directions to establish the tension and frightening elements of the show. I can't say it was a particularly scary show, despite that I watched in the middle of the night, the thing that haunted me more than anything else was an entirely human moment of violence. But that doesn't mean it was less engaging for that, instead I think it forced them to tell an interesting story and they did a really fantastic job at creating this terrible situation that just keeps going downhill, but without feeling like a slog. You know how this all has to end, there's always another problem, and yet the journey to that end is the focus, it's not trying to fool you, it's not trying to take a cheap shot at scaring you, but instead it's telling the story of what these people went through and that so, so much of it was about themselves, not actually about the monster chasing them.
It helps, too, that there's no rape/rape threats (other violence and some gore, but this isn't The Walking Dead, either) and it was just so refreshingly dark without being edgelord grimdark. That and combined with a cast of characters that get stripped down and stripped down until you see who they really are, as portrayed by excellent actors? It was SUCH an experience.
I may be downloading some fic onto my reader as we speak. (I didn't think I'd have any ships by the end, but, boy, did I. I like the friendships, but also there were 2-3 pairings that I feel the siren song of needing more for.)
ღ - Aw, shit. I wasn't going to watch s2 of The Punisher because that trailer was the most lackluster thing just about ever (Netflix MCU really feels phoned in the last year or so, which kind of makes it easier that they're probably going to cancel all of it any day now) but then I saw a mention of [SPOILERS] on ffa and, shit, now I gotta watch it!
ღ - GRACE AND FRANKIE SEASON 5. I AM EXCITED. :D
ღ - I got sucked into reading all about Sarah Rees Brennan wank (here and here and here) and it's just, jeez, the Cassie Claire wank is the wank that never ends. It's pretty boggling to read through all of that, but I couldn't stop watching the trainwreck. (I have no opinions on SRB, she wasn't my area of fandom, I haven't read her books, the only opinion I have is, "Never forgive, never forget, CC." at least until she showed a sincere apology and owned up to it, but I don't think that's ever happening.)
